Best League of Legends items

There are many items in League of Legends. Some of them are popular some of them not. In this guide, we will list items that have the most impact on the game itself. However, this doesn’t mean that you have to buy items from this chart every time you play. Your item build should not be “scripted”. Remember that basically there are no bad or good items and your item choice should be situation depended.

BLADE OF THE RUINED KING – ADVANTAGES

The only item in League of Legends that has all necessary stats for attack damage carry – attack speed, life steal, and attack damage. Despite that this item was hardly nerfed (cost was increased while the range of active ability, attack damage, and life steal were decreased) it’s still one of the best items in League of Legends. One of the main reasons for this is versatility. You don’t need another item to start to rock like it happens with Infinity Edge or Bloodthirster that require Phantom Dancer oк Statikk Shiv to deal decent damage. Another reason is an amazing active ability which often is the last word in duels or can be used as an escape tool. That’s why you usually see BotRK on ranged champions like Twitch or Vayne. For melee champions who are attack speed depended like Irelia, this is just wonderful item which boosts their potential to kill and their survivability.

In summary, it is a great item for all auto-attack champions, and a great counter to the tanks, that stacking hp, like Shen, Vollbear, Zac, Mundo.

BLADE OF THE RUINED KING – COUNTER ITEMS

If you see that the enemy is buying Blade of the Ruined King, then you need to counter it with a Randuin’s Omen or/and Frozen Heart. Both these items give a ton of armor and slow attack speed of an enemy. Both items are great, but the latter gives an attack speed reduction aura.

Another independent item which provides multiple stats and increases burst damage. For a full tanky bruiser having Trinity Force is enough to be able to stomp enemy carries. Movement speed boost of 5% and flat 20 when you attack a target is another great addition because there are few items in the game what provide movement speed except boots. In addition, should be mentioned that Trinity Force consists of useful parts which usually are big help by themselves. Trinity Force sits best on the Champions with the following features:

Spells with low cooldowns what leads to frequent triggers of Spellblade

High base damage since Spellblade damage based on it

Abilities what apply on hit effects, e.g. Nasus or Irelia

RAVENOUS HYDRA

+80 Attack Damage

+100% Base health regeneration

+12% Life steal

PASSIVE: Damage dealt by this item benefits from life steal. UNIQUE PASSIVE – CLEAVE: Your attacks deal up to 60% of your Attack Damage to units around your target as physical damage (185 range), decaying down to 20% near the edge (385 range).UNIQUE ACTIVE – CRESCENT: Deals up to 100% of your Attack Damage to units around you as physical damage, decaying down to 60% near the edge. – 10 second cooldown (400 range).

Crescent and Cleave are MELEE ONLY abilities

Cost: 3500 Gold

Since Bloodthirster was reworked in a defensive side, Ravenous Hydra became the best choice if you seek for pure AD damage. Amazing lane sustain and pushing potential combined with great bonus AD stats and damage from the active ability which, in fact, allows to strike twice at once when fight begins. This is a nice addition to the burst of any AD melee champion.

LUDEN’S ECHO

+100 Ability Power

+10% Movement Speed

UNIQUE PASSIVE: Gains charges upon moving or casting. At 100 charges, the next instance of ability damage you deal will expend all charges to deal 100 (+ 10% AP) bonus magic damage to the first enemy hit and summon up to 3 lesser bolts that target nearby enemies, prioritizing enemies damaged by the ability and champions over minions.

Cost: 3200 Gold

Item which was added recently became incredibly popular in a short time. Except for Lich Bane what suits only a few mid lane champions, there were no items with bonus movement speed for mages. Luden’s Echo suits all. Moreover, it’s effect scales with AP thus this item is amazing for poke champions. As well passive effect is a nice addition to the champion burst. Since AP champions usually don’t buy items for survivability except for Zhonya’s Hourglass, mobility is often the key to survive that’s why this item is really good. Also it can help you to out roam your lane enemy because it increases your push potential and makes you move faster than your foe.

LIANDRY’S TORMENT

+80 Ability Power

+300 Health

+15 Magic Penetration

UNIQUE PASSIVE: Dealing spell damage applies a damage-over-time effect that deals bonus magic damage equal to 2% of the target’s current health per second for 3 seconds. This bonus damage is doubled against movement-impaired units and capped at 100 damage per second vs. monsters.

Cost: 3100

Having only the Liandry’s Torment in your inventory is enough to deal significant damage on champions like Zyra or Lulueven with pure support builds. Due to Liandry’s Torment, passive AP champions who have any crowd control start to deal decent damage in team fights or during poke. Additional 300 Health Points is also a good help for squishy champions.

One of the best items for supports, due to it’s perfect synergy with CC effects, like Frozen Heart, Randuin’s Omen, Rylai’s Crystal Scepter. All these items apply a slow debuff and cause the Liandry’s Torment to deal double damage.

RUNAAN’S HURRICANE

+40% Attack Speed

+7% Movement speed

+30% Critical strike chance

UNIQUE PASSIVE: All your auto attack release 2 additional bolts, that hit up to 2 enemies near the target, each of them dealing 40% of Attack Damage. These bolts can crit, and apply all on-hit effects.

Cost: 2600

Great analog of the Ravenous Hydra but for ranged champions. Additional attack speed will be very useful for any ADc and the high critical strike chance allows to destroy all enemies in the blink of an eye. 7% of movement speed only increases flat ms and didn’t interact with other increases.

INFINITY EDGE

+70 Attack Damage

+20% Critical strike chance

UNIQUE PASSIVE: Critical strike bonus damage increased by 50%.

Cost: 3400

Infinity Edge is on of the most popular items for ADc because it greatly increases the damage that champions can deal. Critical Strike bonus damage from just one item is too damn high.

THE BLACK CLEAVER

+40 Attack Damage

+20% Cooldown reduction

+400 HP

UNIQUE PASSIVE: After dealing a physical damage you reduce the enemy’s armor by 4% per stack for 6 seconds. Can be stacked up to 6 times for a maximum of 24%.

Cost: 3000

Pretty useful item for champions with a high attack speed. And extremely useful item if you fight against a couple of tanks that stacking armor. Physical attacks that apply DOT effects also apply one stack of this debuff on every tick. And do not forget that Armor Reduction and Armor Penetration effects stack.

Nice item that gives a plenty of useful stats, like Attack Speed and Critical Strike chance. Passive effect is great too, and you will charge Statikk Shiv more quickly with auto attacks. Normal 18 champion has 1.2 AS just with Statikk Shiv and that means ~14.5 charges per second while moving you’ll get stacks by 15% slower.

MORELLONOMICON

+100 Ability Power

+400 Mana

+20% CD reduction

UNIQUE PASSIVE: Kills and Assist restore 20% of maximum mana.

UNIQUE PASSIVE: Dealing magic damage to champions that have less than 35% hp apply a Grievous Wound effect (self-healing effects 40% less effective) for 8 seconds.

Cost: 2900 gold

Lovely item for the harasser in the mid or late stages of the game. If you feeling that you do not have enough mana to continue the fight, then think about buying Morellonomicon.Morellonomicon’s passive effect applies to all magic damage, including the damage from on-hit attacks.

RABADON’S DEATHCAP

+120 Ability Power

+35% Ability Power

Cost: 3800 Gold

I don’t even know what to say about this item. Wonderful for pure ability power casters, and very effective on burst assassins. Rabadon’s Deathcap gives a ton of AP and nothing less, so if you do not feel powerful enough, then this item will change your mind.

BEST DEFENSIVE LEAGUE OF LEGENDS ITEMS

In this part of guide, we will consider the most useful LoL items if your aim is to defend yourself and your allies.

ZHONYA’S HOURGLASS

+70 Ability Power

+45 Armor

+10% CD reduction

UNIQUE ACTIVE: Put yourself in stasis for 2.5 seconds, rendering yourself untargetable and invulnerable for the duration, but also unable to move, attack, cast spells, or use items during this time. Cooldown – 120 seconds.

Cost: 2900 Gold

Zhonya’s Hourglass is the number one League of Legends item. It deserved this spot because this item able to turn back team fights if used in the right time and place. There are many reasons why you can use this truly game breaker item:

When you went in to burst someone while you play champions like Fizz or Diana. This often leads to the situation when the enemy team gathers around you what makes them an easy target for your allies.

While you are in the invulnerable stasis your cooldowns continue to go off thus champions who have abilities with low cooldowns can make a second cast when Zhonya’s Hourglass effect last, e.g. Annie or Akali.

Sometimes you can absorb really huge damage which enemies threw on you.

However, may take some time until you learn how to use this active ability of Zhonya’s Hourglass properly.

Also, you can get a good usage of the Zhonya’s Hourglass during the push. Just use its active ability, and the turret’s aggro will switch on another target. Easy way to buy a few second if you really need to destroy that turret.

RANDUIN’S OMEN

+350 Health Points

+60 Armor

UNIQUE PASSIVE – COLD STEEL: When hit by basic attacks, reduces the attacker’s attack speed by 15% for Five seconds.UNIQUE PASSIVE: Reduce the critical damage by -20% that was taken from auto attacks.UNIQUE ACTIVE: Slows the movement speed of nearby enemy units by 55% for 2 seconds. 60 second cooldown (500 Range).

Cost: 2900 Gold

The best armor item in the game if your aim is self-defense. Except that Randuin’s Omen provides strong defensive stats, it has an amazing active ability for bruisers that allows to slow multiple enemies after engage. Also, Randuin’s Omenslows attack speed of attacking enemies by 15% (it slows overall attack speed, not just reduces it by 15%. This is another reason why this item is so valued).

Randuin’s Omen’s 20% of critical damage reduction do not affecting enhanced damage where the damage presented with a special symbol. So this item will be non-effective against Karthus, Anibia, and etc.

ABYSSAL MASK

+65 Magic Resistance

+300 HP.

+100% HP regeneration

10% cooldown reduction

UNIQUE AURA: All enemies that were affected by this aura take 10% more magic damage (Range – 700).

Cost: 2800 Gold

Cheap but very effective item in the mage competition. The best choice against champions with the high burst like Le Blanc when you need survivability without getting behind in damage output. Moreover, this item provides useful aura which would be a decent help in team fights since most champions in League of Legends have magic damage on some of their abilities. The only drawback of this item is a short range of the aura, therefore, you often won’t get benefits from it on champions whose abilities are long range like Syndra or Xerath.

SUNFIRE CAPE

+425 Health Points

+60 Armor

UNIQUE PASSIVE: Deals 12-29 (based on the champion’s level) magic damage per second to nearby enemies (325 range), and deals 200% bonus magic damage to all minions and monsters.

Cost: 2900 Gold

The most popular item for top lane bruisers and there several reasons for that:

Good defensive stats at cheap cost

Magic damage which is more valuable in lane fights than physical because bruisers usually have mostly physical damage thus they stack armor against each other

Increases your split push potential

FROZEN HEART

Frozen heart has the best aura for the late game when attack damage carries start to rock. Also it provides huge amount of Cooldown Reduction (40% is max in League of Legends) which is one of the most important stats for tanks because allows them to use their gap closer and crowd control abilities much more often what exactly they need in order to sit on enemy carries. Bonus of 90 armor would be a big help during this process, negating damage of ADc.

BANSHEE’S VEIL

+470 Ability Power

+10% CD Reduction

+60 Magic Resistance

UNIQUE PASSIVE: Grants a spell shield that blocks the next enemy ability. This shield refreshes after no damage is taken from enemy champions for 40 seconds.

Cost: 3000 Gold

Banshee’s Veil is the best LoL item if you have only one slot for a defensive item. Blocking one spell in the late game can easily lead to avoidance of huge damage or even death. For tanky champions Banshee’s Veil effect prevents disengage attempts of enemies when you have to go in. Don’t forget about additional AP damage and magic resistance.

RIGHTEOUS GLORY

+400 Health Points

+300 Mana Points

+30 Armor

+10% CD reduction

+100% Base Health Regeneration

UNIQUE ACTIVE: Grants +75% Movement Speed to you when moving towards enemies for 4 seconds. When this speed boost ends, it emits a shockwave, slowing nearby enemy champions by 75% for two second (90s cooldown).

Cost: 2500 Gold

As Luden’s EchoRighteous Glory was added recently in League of Legends and become popular very fast. What are you getting when you buy this item? A lot. The most advantage of this item is that it is good during the lane and team fight stages of the game. For the lane phase you are receiving:

Very decent amount of bonus health and mana

Health regeneration

Lane sustain from Valor’s Reward is very effective at early game when champions level up fast

For team fight phase you are receiving best engage ability item can provide which is very effective on champions like Maokai or Volibear. Another significant advantage is a cheap cost.

GUARDIAN ANGEL

+40 Attack Damage

+30 Armor

UNIQUE PASSIVE: After receiving a killing blow you will be placed in the Stasis field for 4 seconds, which will restore 50% of base hp, and 30% of maximum mana. CD – 300 seconds.

Just a great item, that will give you a second chance if you was focused hard. Low price and a great passive effect, what else you need?

Cost: 2400 Gold

As we mentioned before, your item choice should depend mostly on situation in the game. However there are default item builds which are very close to universal and you may include items from this chart in your builds.

BotRK was a crazy item when it was released, if i remember correctly it had:
1. Less cost, something about 2800.
2. More AD
3. Passive cooldown was less, 60 sec instead of 90.
4. Passive range was significanlty more than now :p

Yeah, there are a ton of new and curious items in League of Legends right now, And I hope that in some sunny day, I’ll come back to this article and I’ll see it renewed and fresh as a breeze. But still, most of the items on this list are almost the same, so great job, and keep going on!

Btw, why don’t you divide offensive items in Ability Power and Attack Damage categories? It would be much nicer to learn them in that way.

Well there are many items were added to the league since this guide was written. All i want to say that new items and mechanics on them are changing the game completely which helps to avoid feeling of players that they play in the same game over and over again.